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Monsters and Their Meanings in Early Modern Culture : Mighty Magic

Wes Williams explores the place of monsters in the early modern imagination, charting the migration of the monstrous from natural history to moral philosophy, from descriptions of creatures found in the external world to the drama of human motivation, of sexual and political identity. At its centre are readings of major works of French literature.Read more...

Reviews

Editorial reviews

Publisher Synopsis

This is a book born of long and deep reflection on its subjects' writings (especially Montaigne's), and attends to both the tiny stitches of an essay, play or fiction, and to the larger design. As Williams maps the linkages and the meanings to which they lead, he can listen with a tuner's sensitivity to the internal rhymes in a line of Racine and to their equivalents in Ted Hughes's rendering, or, zooming out, can give a sweeping overview of the poliical context. Hismethods persuasively combine material historicity with some inspiration from "universal" deconstructionism and psychoanalysis; the results are rich and layered, and show how barren theoretical purism can be. * Marina Warner, Times Literary Supplement *Read more...